Sailor Bob - nonduality. Conceptual image about myself… 15 Mar'20

The same thing over and over and over and we keep saying the same thing. If something resonates it needs to be possibly be heard again and again instead of jumping off into something else until the absolute certainty that what's being said is the truth and so that's why we keep going over the same old story. We can't teach you anything here and we can't tell you anything. Understand that right from the start. What we do is point toward and ask you to look to where we pointed to to see for yourself because nobody can ever do it for me for you and when you understand what we pointed to you'll see why.

Because it's nothing new we are pointing to. You'll recognize it in all the great traditions, all the past religions and great traditions that have recognized it and pointed to it. You'll see it's all there but it's seemingly lost sight of by the concepts and stories we put upon it. Hinduism for instance they call it Advaita. Advaita translated means non duality. Non duality means one without a second not two. So pointing out that everything is this one essence that's patterning, shaping, forming and expressing as everything and so you can't be anything other than that. But we've got this belief where persons, separate entities, individuals and all sorts of other beliefs which are all the way thinking or the mind vibrates.

Always vibrates dualistically. That way I'm not going to be able to do it. I'm not talking to anybody. I'm not talking to any mind. I'm not talking to you as that body mind identity. I'm talking to that I am that I am. The same I am when you're expressing your nature. Anybody ask who you are you'll say naturally say I am. So speaking to that I am that I am just to this nothing else. Everything we put on it is I am. But the problem is we've taken the I to be separate as an individual. The person. And when you look at that word person where does it come from?

Comes from the ancient language. I think was Latin persona, the mask. So we've got this mask or conceptual image. An image made up of thoughts, concepts. I'm Bob the Australian. Is that a pure I? I'm Bob the Australian. The good fellow or the bad fellow that was abused as a child. He was unhappy. I'm this, that and the other, all these concepts which are now dead images. If you ask yourself what's wrong with right now without an image, what can you say? You can't say it's good, bad, pleasant, painful. So we're always relating to the past. Or imagining and anticipating the future. And they say you've got to try and stay in the now.

And I don't say that. Here I say try and get out of the now. Because when you look at it, you'll realise everything is just a meaty thing right here, right now. And recognise that time itself is a mental concept. If you ask yourself is there a past and don't think about it, what can you say? You can't say there's a past without a thought. And that's what Shakespeare told you a few hundred years ago. When he says there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. That's what Shakespeare told you a few hundred years ago. So it's thinking that's dividing it or discriminating.

So we're going to get back to the non-duality. In Hinduism they call that Sat Chit Ananda. Nama Rupa. Sat is existence. Chit is consciousness. Ananda is loving to be or the bliss of being. The Nama is the name we put upon ourselves. Me, Bob. And the form is this body through which that name is expressing through. So the name and form, Nama Rupa, Nama Rupa, Amaya. They tell you this in the scriptures. Maya meaning illusion. And it's a phenomenal manifestation which is what it will tell you. It's phenomenal. Look up your dictionary definition of phenomena. And the definition of phenomena, that which appears to be.

So you and I and everything in this room and outside of the room is appearance only. Seemingly so. It's not the actuality, the real. The real is the basic intelligence energy. Or the basic space and silence and stillness in which everything appears in. The emptiness. Buddha told you that a couple of thousand years ago when he made the statement that emptiness is form. Called it a cognising emptiness. But we think we are cognising the emptiness. But it's not. It's the emptiness itself that has that capacity of cognising. Mind is not telling you you're cognising. Cognising is there and it's translated. The cognising. So in that cognising emptiness he made the statement that emptiness is form.

Pointing out again that all this manifestation is shapes and forms, patterns. And the form can be nothing other than emptiness. Pointing out again clearly that it's only that one essence. Now take that sat chit ananda. Sat is existence. Chit is consciousness. Ananda is loving to be or the blessed being. And the nama rama. Nama, rupa are the body, mind. Now is anyone not existing right now? Now you must say no I'm existing. I'm here right now. Anyone's not conscious or unaware. So you're not unaware. If you're not unaware you must be aware. And you must be conscious. You're not unconscious so you must be conscious.

And anyone who's not happy to be. You'd rather be than not be wouldn't you? You wouldn't want to be dead. So. You recognise you are that existence. You are that consciousness. You are that loving to be. Already. So it's not a matter of trying to acquire or become something which you've taken on the idea. We are this separate entity. This persona. This mask. And if we do this practice. Repeat this mantra. Sit in this meditation. Go to the next teacher or read this next book. You will become something. But have a look at that. You are being right now. Satyatana. There's another name for Satyatana.

Being. Knowing and loving to be. And they say you can't negate your being. That being. So being can never be becoming. Or becoming can never be being. And we think if we do this and do that we will become something. But how? There's no such thing as becoming. It's only all. Everything is pure being right now. And you know that in your land. In your language also. If you call God the supreme being. If you believe in a God. You'll call God the supreme being. And we believe ourselves human beings. What happens if you cancel out the label supreme. And take off the label human.

And try and separate the beingness in this room. And you realize everything in this room is pure being. It's being a chair. It's being in a carpet. It's being in a room itself. It's being in the mirror. It's being you. Being me. The same outside. That's being a tree. It's being a flower. It's being in the sky. Everything is that pure being. And it's not becoming anything. It starts off as the beingness. It's still the same beingness. Vibrating, patterning, shaping and forming. Into seemingly different patterns. So don't use the term God here. Don't use that because we can get confused with that term. Hey, I mean.

Everybody will have a different concept of what they believe God is. Like agnostics got the concept of God. Atheists will have another concept. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews. All will have concepts about what they believe God is. And so if I start talking about God. You'll start relating to whatever your conceptual idea or concept is. And miss out on what we're pointing to. But I'm pointing to the absolute. The absoluteness of it all. The purity of it all. Not to the conceptual images. So look along these lines which we're pointing to. And we say the false cannot stand up to investigation. That's why we need to investigate and see for ourselves.

But we've taken on this belief that we are these human beings. And whatever your traditional belief is. Whatever your appearance will be. Or whatever you've taken on yourself. We load that down on ourselves too. So we need to look at all these things. How did you come into being? How did you recognise this being? Can you remember your birth? And you realise when you look at it you can't remember your birth. Yet you'll say I was born. But you don't know you were born. Why? Because you didn't have any words when you were born. How many words did you have? How many concepts did you learn?

None. So you didn't have any words. So how could you say you were born? So you don't... You don't remember or know anything about your birth. But you don't remember anything about that in the first couple of years of your life. The little child hasn't got any words. Until the capacity of reasoning develops in him. Now this capacity of reasoning is a useful capacity. That human patterns, it's more developed in than what it is other animals, birds or insects. Not so developed in then. But they have other capacities which are more developed than our capacity of reasoning is. Like a bird has eyesight. Being able to see much superior than what our sight is.

It can fly. But we can't fly naturally. But through the capacity of reasoning haven't we learnt to build ourselves eyeglasses, binoculars and telescopes which enable us to see much better. And we've built ourselves planes, helicopters, balloons and kites and things like that which enable us to fly. A dog has a sense of smell. Which is much more developed in now. Chameleons and insects like that can change colour. We can't do that. Caterpillars will form cocoons around themselves. And that caterpillar inside will metamorphose into a butterfly or a moth or something like that. With all those beautiful colours and everything. All these things are happening naturally and effortlessly.

And when we look back at this body, mind we call ourselves. We put the label when we learn the words. And you don't learn any words until that capacity of reasoning develops. When your parents fussing around you. Telling you you're Little Johnny or you're Little Billy. You say I'm Little Johnny. Add on to it other words we've learnt. We learn that word I am. And realise that people say you've got to stay in the I am-ness. And repeat the I am. But it's not the mantra I am. It's what that I am represents. What does it represent? It represents that sense of presence that you are.

Your presence and the way you're alive. Your presence and the way you're right now. And you know it. And you say I am to express it. That's the word you've learnt. You are that sense of presence. Not the thought or the concept. But see when we learn I am. Now we've taken ourselves to be the person. The persona. Where did the word person come from? Doesn't it come from the Latin persona? The mask. So we've taken on this mask of concepts. Mask of thoughts and words. I am Bob the Australian. The good fella. Not so good. Or unhappy. Or abused as a child. Or I'm fearful.

Or I'm jealous. Or I'm enmy. All these concepts are added onto it. And I've got a conceptual image about myself. Which we call reference point. The self-centre. Or the ego. The reference self-centre or the ego. They're all one thing. Meaning the same thing. And everything becomes relative to this reference point. Or self-centre. Or ego. And what's relativity? Isn't it relationship? And what's relationship? Duality. And we're pointing out there's no such thing as duality. It's absolute fiction. Now that's when the idea of being separate entities, individuals, persons, come about with this word. Individual. But even that word individual means undivided. And yet we're dividing ourselves and taking that to be real.

So you can get the idea that when you're all yourself. You're all you. You're all you. You're all you. And that's what psychological suffering comes about from. Constantly relating to this conceptual image. Our problems are relationship. And relativity or relationship is dualism. And there is absolutely no duality, they tell you, in non-duality. It's all the absolute. And what can you add to the absolute? Nothing. What can you take away from it? Nothing. So, what have you got to add to yourself when you realise that if it's all the absolute you can't be anything other than the absolute right here or now? Or as they put it in Buddhism, the great perfection.

And they'll tell you the great perfection is non-conceptual awareness. Anybody who is unaware right now or unconscious, no, you're aware. That is the absolute. Recognise that and realise that without that absolute, without that awareness, how many thoughts, feelings or emotions could you have? That absolute is non-duality. That absolute is the life essence of you. It's the life essence of everything in this manifestation. And that's why the Sargadatta would tell you there is only life. There is nobody who lives a life. And he says life lives on life. For out of life more life comes. When you question that and look at it, you'll see it's so.

So, we've got this persona, a mask, and everything becomes relative to that. Go back to that. When did you take on life? When did you take on this idea? When you were separate? When you learnt these words? Before that, the little child is just functioning naturally. He hasn't learnt any words. He's seeing, he's hearing, he's tasting, touching, smelling, just the same as you are and I are right now. And he's not putting any labels on to words. He's just seeing it as it is. But now when he learns words, I or me, and the capacity of reasoning developing, he looks out there and he says, I am little Johnny.

But that down there, that's not little Johnny. That's not me. That's not I. So what does he do? He feels separate from it. And that's when the sense of separation first comes upon us. And with that sense of separation comes insecurity and vulnerability. When we start relating to the separate entity, we feel very insecure about it because we don't know what that is down there. We haven't understood it or learnt what it is yet. So we're insecure about it. We're very vulnerable. We don't know what it can do to us. And that's when our problem search really starts from then on. From then on we're trying to become whole and complete because we've taken on the belief that we are separate.

But look at that word belief and see your dictionary definition of belief is an acceptance. Unquestioned. An unquestioned acceptance of something in the absence of reason. It means we haven't reasoned it out. We haven't looked at it. We've taken it on face value of what our parents told us or what our schools, society and nation tells us without any reason. An unquestioned acceptance of something in the reason, without reason, acceptance of an alleged fact without positive knowledge or proof. We've taken on these alleged things we've been told and instead of investigating we've believed them. And so we get tangled up with the beliefs. So you see the belief's not the actual when you put it to that test.

So we need to investigate. We need to investigate and look at these things. And in the questioning of it and looking at them you see the false is false and the false cannot stand up to the investigations. That's why we need to look at all these things and investigate them. Many analogies to point that out. We take the analogy of the blue sea. But I say go down to the ocean and get me a bucket of blue water out of the sea. What would you say to me? You'd say don't be ridiculous because when you look at it there's no, the sea's not blue at all.

It appears to be. Go out up and. Outside and look at the sky. It seems to be space. It seems to be blue sky. But the sky is space. Space is. Sky is only, space is only emptiness. The sky is space. Where's the blueness? Go up in a plane thirty thousand feet. Is the blueness coming in the ports of the plane? It's not. It's always further out when you look at it. It's not right there. So you see it's always something away from you. People stood on the shore years ago and looked out to where the sea and the sky met. And it's not. When the sky met the horizon they were told don't go out there, you'll fall off the edge of the earth.

And people believed it then. Who would believe it today? Nobody because it's been investigated. And they say the earth's not flat, not completely, it's round. The snake and the rope is another one they tell us in the scriptures. A fella steps out in his room on a wet night, it's been raining, there's a piece of wet rope outside and he steps on it and it rolls under him. He doesn't know what it is. doesn't know what it is he immediately thinks he's trodden on the snake and immediately his hair stands on end the goose pimples come up and the fear and the trembling start and he can imagine the bite the poison going through and all sorts of fear comes up because of this somebody comes up and shines a piece shuns a torch on it see look it's only a piece of wet rope they immediately sees it it's a great sense of relief but because the body's been stirred up with the trembling and the function it doesn't die down straight away and it takes a little while to settle down and when you start investigate the things that are going on your body there's the same with these sorts of things happen all the time you've got all these conceptual image and relate to them and keep reinforcing them and so he was out now with that capacity of reasoning and he learns the words he learns the words I or me and he starts reading I am little Johnny his parents tell him and that becomes what he believes you can't do much with I or me so he adds on to it I'm Bob, the Australian, the good fella.

I had a bad childhood, I was abused, or I'm unhappy, or people don't like me, or I'm introverted. All these concepts are added onto it. And they're all dead images, all based on the past. As I say, I don't use the term God, I use the term intelligence energy. And that's not it. That's just another concept. That it's pointing out that I'm not this body of mine for a start off. That's the concept. Intelligence energy. Now have a look at that. When I'm talking about intelligence, I'm not talking about intellect. Because there are different degrees of intellect in this room. Some of you are smarter than what I'm likely to be.

Some might be quite so smart. But there are different degrees of it. But look out there in nature. Take your leaf from nature, because we want to. It's a natural state, as in nature. Everything is as in nature. And you'll see, look out there in the galaxy. Planets, stars are forming or moving around, exploding or imploding. Tides are coming in and out. Seasons coming and going. Earth rolling around the sun as day and night. All sorts of movement or activity is going on. And what's moving it and changing it? Isn't it that innate intelligence? When I say intelligence energy, intelligence is not the intellect. But intelligence is the activity of knowing.

You immediately know that you are. That sense of presence is all right. So it's the activity of knowing. And knowing being an activity, what's an activity? Is it a vibration? A movement? It's a movement of energy. So that's the intelligence energy, not the person or anyone else that's knowing. It's the life itself that's vibrating, patting and all, shaping all these forms. And the essence is it's suffused with that intelligence. It's a knowing. Going back to the Satyajit Ananda, the being, knowing and loving to be. That's intelligence energy vibrating in all these patterns, or the absolute. So it's never moved away. It's not a change from that.

But we've got these concepts that we've taken and have a look at how that functions. Just like out there in nature, there's steam, water and ice. The steam comes about through the heat of the sun, radiates and evaporates the water, and that rises as steam, cools down and becomes the liquid fluid, water. And then that cools down a bit more to become ice. Three aspects of the one. Have a look at this in your life. It's thought, feeling and emotion. The same thing, three aspects different. Thought's very subtle. You can be thinking a lot subtly there, but you don't recognise that thinking's going on until it becomes a bit more solid or...

Substantial. Hmm? Substantial. Solid or substantial. Yeah. It becomes a bit more... It becomes into a feeling. Or a sensation. That's all a sensation is, is a feeling. And what have we done? We've labelled it from the past. This sensation is fear. I've had it before, how do I know? Well, this one's anger. And this one's unhappiness. This one's depression. This one's guilt. We put those old labels, but instead of continually seeing them fresh and new, we put the old labels on and keep reinforcing a dead image because that label's gone now. If you ask yourself what's wrong with right now, if you don't think about it, what can you say?

Can you say it's good? Bad? Pleasant? Painful? Happy? Or answer? You can't. Unless you relate it to the old sensation we've got. This one's come up before, and it's fear. So see what we've done? We've labelled ourselves down with all these dead images instead of seeing them fresh and new. This comes up, we're immediately labeled as a fear or anger. Instead of looking at it as fresh and new, put the old sensation label on it. Instead of seeing it fresh and new, if you see it fresh and new, it might not be as you labelled. You might see it in a totally different light and get a different take on things.

But we're constantly relating to the old and suffering accordingly. It doesn't have to be that way. So how does that all happen? Well, something comes up, and you like it. How do you know? Well, I've had this before. I put the old label on it. This is good. And we want this one again. We don't want the good things to go. So we put the label on it. And not realising that everything in this manifestation is transient. There is nothing in it whatsoever that's static, and there is no self-nature to anything. It's all a continually vibrating intelligence entity. Instead of seeing it fresh and new, and realise that it is static, because when you look at that and investigate, you'll see you recognise you haven't got the same body you walked into this room.

You might think it's the same, but when you investigate, you'll see there are thousands of cells dying in it right now and being replaced. Not one or two, but thousands of them. And you don't notice it because it's happening seemingly in the moment. But when you look back on what your body was like five years ago, you'll know it's static. And you'll see it's not static. You'll know it's changed. It's transient. But you don't realise the transient. Every moment is fresh and new. We're not seeing it. We're relating it to the old and sticking with the old. And the old is the past. And can the past keep up with life?

It can't. So we get left behind by relating to the past all the time, trying to keep up. And that's when we get into all this psychological suffering. So we're starting from behind our eight balls. Still starting fresh and new. We've got to try and fix the past first and then go into the now. But you can't. When you look at time, you'll see time's a mental concept. Is there a past if you don't think about it? Without a thought, you can't say there's a past or a future. But you'll say, I was in the past. And I'll say, all right, try and live yesterday.

Try and live a moment there. Go back and try and live it. You can't go back and live yesterday or even a moment ago. You can recall it, but you're recalling the same old thing. So you can't live a moment in the past. And so try and live a moment in the future. You can anticipate and imagine what you're going to do when you leave here or next week or next year. But that anticipation and imagination is only going on right in this moment. And what you're anticipating and imagining as a future hasn't happened yet. That's why people say, you've got to try and stay in the now.

I'll say, try and get out of it. You can't because it's always a spontaneous nowness, if you like to call it. When does now begin? Have a look at that. Use that concept. I'll try and grab the now. All right. It's happening right now. So I'll grab it right now. But even as you're saying that, it's moved on, hasn't it? So you recognise that if you investigate and see through it. But it's constantly transient. And we're trying to keep up with it. Now, this ego, this fictitious entity we've formed, it's made up of concepts, ideas and images. Go back again. When did you begin? You'll say, I was born.

But you can't remember your birth. When did you begin? Well, investigate and see for yourself. We'll go back as far as your father and your mother. And you can go take it back further than that if you like to investigate and look at it. That animating and life essence, which is the same animating and life essence that's patterning, shaping and forming through that pattern you call here, through the essence of the food, eaten by your father, got the nourishment out of that, and the prana, the air he breathed in, he got the essence out of that, enabled in that little pattern, a little microscopic particle called a sperm to form.

You can't see it with your naked eye. But that sperm was suffused with intelligence, energy, it knew what to do. And the same life essence in the mother, through the food and the prana again, enabled in that pattern, another little life essence that was a little microscopic particle called an egg or an ovum to form. That was suffused with intelligence also. It knew what to do. It attached itself to the wall of the uterus. It wasn't floating around accidentally. It attached itself to the wall of the uterus. And the sperm knew what to do. It swam to the ovum. And again, it wasn't just a blob of goo.

It has the capacity of swimming. And it also, intelligence, it knew where to swim to and what to do when it got there. It penetrated the ovum. And when those two came together, what happened? It penetrated the intelligence, life, energy in them, doubled that cell, redoubled it, and formed a little embryo, the little fetus, which is what you are today. You might remember that, but that's what you are today. It's grown and changed since then. It's transient like everything else. And what were you doing about it then? You said, I'd better grow a brain cell or a heart cell or a tongue or a voice.

All these things happened. These things happened spontaneously and naturally. The transient, the change is happening like it is right now, like it is in this manifestation. Emptiness is form. It's forming, pattern, shape and form. And the form is nothing other than the emptiness. It's all doing that. So those thoughts come up, as I said before, and we like it. How do you know? Well, I've experienced it before. So I'm relating to a dead image experience. I want to keep the things we like. We don't want them to go. Not realising that they are transient. But in the recognition that they are transient, they're going to change, and you realise that no matter how much you love them, how much you want to keep them there, how much you want to cling to them, hang onto them, they're going to change.

And isn't that happening in your life? You're changing yourself and everything around you has changed. Some of your loved ones might have died. Some of them have moved on. You have changed your idea or image about them. But it's constant, transient, constantly changing. We don't want the change to go on. We want to keep the good things and don't like the bad ones. We want them to function. So what do we do? We resist it from going. We fight with it. Resistance is conflict, and the conflict is the fight. We argue it. Try and keep it there. Resistance and conflict, and that makes you uneasy, fearful, anxious, depressed, guilty.

All your psychological suffering comes about from that resistance that's going on. In other words, with that resistance is uneasiness. Or put it another way, dis-ease. Resistance, conflict, and dis-ease. That's what's happening in us all the time. Something comes up and I don't like. What do we do with this one? Well, I don't like this. I've got to try and get rid of it. With all my might, with all my power, I've got to push it out, get rid of it. So again, I'm resisting it from being there. Again, in conflict, in conflict, again, dis-ease. That's all my life is, continually suffering. And there are only brief moments when it all drops away for a moment and I see it as it actually is.

And there's peace or joy or a sense of well-being there. But it doesn't last because we go back into the old habits immediately and reinforce them, keep them going. So you recognise that me is the cause of all my psychological suffering, the belief in me. And the effects of that cause, the thoughts. Isn't that what so-called karma is? Are the effects of cause and effect? It's karma. Me is the cause and the effects are the belief I've got in these concepts. What happens if I ask myself the simple question, well, can there be an effect if I'm not relating to a cause? Well, test that out for yourself.

If you're not relating to any cause, where can the effect lodge and what can the effect be? So you can be rid of all that if you recognise it. So the me is the problem. This egoic me is the cause. So wouldn't it be imperative that we investigate this ego and this cause and see if it's so? And we say here there's no such thing as an ego. There never was, never has been, never will be or never could be. It's a total fiction, which the ego is. It's a total fiction. Which the energy of belief has gone into and made it seemingly real. Again, that energy.

And the energy of belief couldn't come in if we hadn't learnt those words and put the belief into the words before we investigate them. Because their mere appearance never told us. Instead of saying investigate and see that you already are the absolute, because they don't know themselves, they'll say you've got to acquire, attain, add to, accumulate, amass, whatever you can to make yourself whole. Get a good education, get a better job, more wealth, do this, all these sort of things, add to them, and you will become whole or complete. But it doesn't happen. It can't happen. Because you try to make what is already whole and complete whole when it was never separate in the first place.

So that's the suffering gets worse then because we can't. And some of you might have meditated for years or chanted this mantra or read this book or gone to this one or that one and haven't found the answer yet. Why haven't you? What it might just dawn on you then will come about just in a sense of oh, maybe I've been looking in the wrong direction. I've been looking all this time. Where have I been looking? I've been looking in the mind. Trying to work it out in the mind and never found the answer there. And then when you read some of the scriptures you'll tell you you won't find the answer in the mind because the answer's not there.

And you'll never ever get peace of mind. The mind will never be at peace because the nature of the mind is to vibrate. And that's why they call it in the Bible the peace that passes all understanding. Because it can't be understood or grasped in the mind. But we don't... Notice that we keep trying to work it out with the concepts. And when the Buddha told us that the great perfection that's absolute is non-conceptual awareness without any of these mental constructs. If you ask yourself what's wrong with right now if I don't think about it and look beyond the thought and see what's there without a thought if you can then you might...

when you get little glimpses of it you'll see that you can't say it's right or wrong without a thought. And just as it is. As it is means unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. And look out there and make you think everything is as it is right now. If you're not putting those concepts or words on it. And you see the other thing that the word is not the real. The word's not the actual. Have a look at that. Take the word water. Try and drink the word if you think the word's real. Swim in the word. Drown in the word. You can't. Take the word fire. Burn your mouth with it if you can.

Cook with it. Heat yourself. So you can't. So what's this word I or me when you investigate? You might see it's not what you've taken it to mean yourself to be. That's not what you've conceptually following on your parents, your school and society have put on it. See it fresh and new. It's just another label. It can be very useful. The word can be very useful. But the word is not the real. It's not the thing. We put so many words or labels on things. Everything you put a word on. That's what I told you in the Bible. In the beginning it was the word.

The word was with God. The word was God. That's all that God is. There's a word. Another label we put on it. All things were made by him, by the word. And isn't that so? That's the chair. That's the carpet. That's the tree. That's the flower. That's space. That's God. That's the universe. All things were made by him. There was nothing made that was made without the word. So it's the word which is the life itself. That is what is forming, patterning, shaping and everything. And the word is not the real. So the manifestation can't be real either. And when you investigate that, you'll see.

It's constantly changing and changing. So we need to investigate that. We've added all these words onto that. Something comes up and I like it. No. No, I'll tell you this way. You're seeing right now and you're hearing right now. Isn't that a fact? You say, yeah, I'm seeing. I'm hearing. But ask yourself this. Does my eye tell me I see? Well, no. My eye is not saying, look at this, Bob. That's good. That's better. My eye can't say anything at all. Not a thing. But the thought I see is translating it. The same with the hearing. My ear is not saying, look at this, Bob.

I hear that. It's a good tune. That's this. It can't say anything at all. But again, it's translated by the thought I hear. Now, if that thought I see and the thought I hear is not a true thought anymore, because what have we done to that thought? We've added onto it the conceptual image that you've got. I, me, Bob, this conceptual image, am seeing. And I, me, Bob, the conceptual image, is hearing. Thoughts. So it's not the thought that I see. It's not the hearing or the ear hearing. It's the translation by the thought. But the thought is no longer a pure translation. Now, the thought I see comes up.

Have a look at that. Well, is that true? Can the thought I see actually see? Can a thought see? Shut your eyes. Look around the room with your eyes closed. See what you can see with a thought. You can't see anything with a thought. You can imagine concepts or ideas, but actual seeing, you can't see anything with your eyes closed. With a thought. So the thought that was translating and everything, there's no use to you without that life essence of it. The same with the thought I hear. Block your ears off and see what you can hear with a thought. And you realize you can't hear anything.

To the thought I am aware. You know? Can that awareness, can you be aware of anything without, with a thought? The thought I am aware is not your awareness. Have a look at that. The thought I see can't see. The thought I hear can't hear. The thought I am aware is not your awareness. Another one we think is true. The thought I choose. We think we choose our thoughts. Well, for a start off, tell me what your next thought's going to be. You can't. The thought I choose can't choose. Why would you have an unhappy or a miserable or anxious or fearful thought if you could choose them?

You can't. These things come up. So you see this thought up in you, this ego that we give it all the credit for, can't see, can't be aware, hear, can't be aware, can't choose, not doing your breathing, not beating your heart, can't do anything at all. It's a total fiction. Yet this is what we believe in. And reinforce and keep going to it, trying to work it out with this conceptual image. You might say, well, they say they won't find the answer in the mind. Now look at that. If you won't find the answer in the mind, where are you going to find? And you look at it, every direction I look will always be in the mind.

What way is there out of the mind? Full stop. It's the only way out. And when you learn to look beyond the thought, what's there, and get that pause and recognise with that pause, you're still seeing, you're still hearing, you haven't stopped breathing, your heart's still beating. Your heart hasn't stopped beating. The intelligent energy, the awareness are still there. The functioning is still going on. But it's not thought-based. Thought's only a translator. So what's doing it? Well, take that life essence out of the body, the intelligent energy, and you've got a corpse. And that corpse has got eyes still before it rots, got ears, got heart, lungs, kidneys, all the organs are there.

But without that life essence, can they do anything at all? Nothing whatsoever. So what must be doing it? What must you be? It must be the thoughts, the feelings or the emotions or the mind, or must you be the intelligent energy? You must be that you are that intelligent energy. And that's the same intelligence that's rolling the earth around the sun, causing the tides to come in and out, the seasons to come and go. And it's the same intelligent energy that's breathing you. That's beating your heart. That's growing your hair and your fingernails. It's replacing cells in your body and causing thoughts to come, to arise.

Thinking's happening. So you must, again, point out that you are the life itself. And that's what Christ told you. I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. Not talking about himself, talking about that sense of presence. Sense of presence that expresses of the thought. I am. That's the way, that's the truth, that's the life. Negate that presence right now. That sense of being right now. You can't. So you must be that. The thing is we've attributed to the conceptual image, the mind, rather than see its life itself, its patterning, shaping, forming, expressing as everything. And you can't be anything other than that.

And that's the Mahavaka or the great mantra. I am that. And don't you innately already know that? Because don't you say that's the chair, that's the carpet, that's the mirror, that's the room, that's the tree outside, that's the flower, that's the sky, that's you, that's me. Everything is that which we've put concepts or labels on, the differentiator. Put the words on. To the same, that's Tony, we see Tony as that pattern of energy, that's the body of mind. But it's just a... Just another word we put on it. It's all the one essence, patterning, shaping, forming and expressing as everything. That's what I say needs to happen.

You need to investigate these things and see for yourself. And some of you have looked into it. Some of you have had glimpses of it. Every one of us have had glimpses of it out throughout our life. But the old habit pattern we're so related to has come back and we've seemingly lost sight of it. And obscured it. Like a good analogy for that is like go outside on a cloudy day. And would you say the sun is not in the sky? The sun is seemingly obscured by the cloud. But you know well because you've investigated the sun has never left the sky because you've investigated it out.

And when you recognise yourself, what's formed the cloud? And you realise the sun itself forms the cloud. Now the sun doesn't know anything about the cloud. The great manifestation of the sun... That great, it can't... It can never be totally obscured by clouds. The clouds might form blocks here and there in it. And though it seems that the whole sky as we see it in other places, it'll always be free. It seemingly formed the cloud. The sun itself. Now the sun doesn't know anything about the cloud. But the nature of the sun is to shine. Or to radiate. And in that radiation or heat, what does it do?

It evaporates water. The water rises and cools down when it gets up to a certain height and forms a cloud. Forms a cloud which seemingly obscures the sun. The sun is not obscured at all. It's only seemingly so. And the sun... The cloud will blow away or disperse or come down as rain or ice or snow. Seemingly solidifying. But the space or the essence is always the same. And the cloud... And that essence is always the same. It's not... And the clouds come and go. Just the same as thoughts come and go in your head. There is no thought stitched to a patient inside your skull.

Every thought, when you look at it, is fresh and new. Just as there's no cloud stitched onto the sky or it's blown away by the wind. It'll disperse. It'll come down as hail or rain or ice or snow. And seemingly solidify. These concepts solidify in the thoughts, feelings and emotions. And that's all that's happening. Investigate that and see for yourself. And you'll realise what you are has always been and always will be. You've never left it. And relax into that. And abide as that. Let it rest in its uncontrived singularity. What's changing? Relaxing or resting into it. It's the singularity. It's the one essence appearing in everything.

But when we contrive it, form thoughts, concepts, and discriminating it, and contriving it, we're causing all our problems for ourselves. It doesn't have to be that way. Look along those lines and see for yourself. And you'll realise you've always had glimpses of it. And they've seemingly gone away. And what's happened there? The cloud has seemingly come back again. And you'll say, I've lost it. If it's all, what do I call it? The total. The total. What is the total? Absolute. It was all the absolute. How can it ever go? And how can it ever come back? It's always and ever that. The vibrating patterns, shapes, and forms might change and alter and seem to me so.

But are they the reality? They're not. They're only the appearance. Nama, rupa. They're the name and form. All maya, which is a phenomenal manifestation, and the definition of phenomenal is that which appears to be. And appearance is only seemingly so. But go back and recognise your true nature. And realise that I am that. I've always and ever been that. I've never been anything other than that. Never could be. So you're going to go back and believe that the person has come back then. Though you go out back there in the manifestation, there's 99.9% of the population coming from that point of view. Very few are recognised.

And so we seem to get caught up in it. You go out there and try and stay with it, and unless you get a bit of a hold on it, they can drag you into it, suck you back in again. You get stable in it. Instead of them sucking you back in, what do you do? You'll suck them out of it. Because they'll see the change in you. And they'll know what brought this change about, and they'll ask you the question. And then they might recognise it too. That's why people come to these things, to look into it and investigate and see for themselves. Something has moved them to look a bit further.

The body-mind idea or the conceptual mind, but some of it doesn't move. It doesn't change. But it all happens by itself. So some of you have had glimpses of it or seen it, or some of you can put it in different terms, or gone further with it. And others of you might have doubts or questions or arguments, and that's the only way you can get out of it. Co-organise to doubt it, to question. To question and investigate and see for yourself. So away you go. Don't get into it. Tell us what you know. The ears, the insides of the ears. Reflections. Then we'll look at what's happening there.

The seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, thinking. It's all happening spontaneously and naturally. Thought comes up, and you're immediately related to the conceptual image you have about yourself. So I think. I think this thought. What's happened? The thinking has been divided into subject, thinker, and thought, object, duality. But ask yourself this. Can there be a thinker without thinking? And you realise, no. Thinking's first. I'm thinking. So there can't be a thinker, which is the subject, without thinking. Can there be the object? Without thinking. There can't. So you realise that subject, object, are false. The actuality is the thinking. Do the same with seeing. So I see, subject.

I see the chair, object. Feeling. I feel the sensation, subject. And whatever comes up as the label, the angle of the fear, become the object. So it all comes about, the division is all conceptual. No reality. But the actuality is the living, the being, the tasting, the touching, the smelling. The one essence of patterning, shaping, and forming. And expressing is everything. And know for certain that I am that. That is what you are. That is what I or we are. Everything is that. Not hard, is it? But if you go about it the other way, this me, that's insecure and vulnerable, I've got to become whole.

I've got to meditate and work it out in the mind. Read this book, go to the next teacher and the next that thing. I'll become something. I did it for years and years and it never happened. Until it was recognised, maybe I was looking in the wrong direction. Simply looking in the mind. And what mind is there if you don't think about it? Is there such a thing as mind? And you realise there's no such thing as mind apart from thought. And which particular thought are you? Our mind. If you're mind. You realise that I am is the particular thought you believe yourself to be.

And that I am is just a sense of presence being translated as the thought. You don't really need that thought. Just add something because I think that's a really practical way that you both sometimes say. Instead of looking for our true nature or looking for what we are, it's better to actually see what obscures that sense of presence for what we are not. Like everything that is conceivable or perceivable is not the ultimate observer or knower. So if I see the body is there, it means it's an object in consciousness. Or the mind is there, it's an object. The personality is an object. The feelings, emotions, they're all passing, changing objects.

And there seem to be something that is never changing that can register the change. And that is called non-conceptual awareness or the cognising emptiness. The emptiness that has the capacity to cognise. And to see how this natural knowing of that emptiness is obscured by the idea. Because as Bob is saying, what I am, I'm already that. Whatever the that means. That is everything. That is carpet, ceiling, whatever. But what obscures that? Only an idea. When I take up an idea that I'm a woman, I'm a human being, then belief goes into that idea. And the sense of union with all that is, or sense of being nothing or being everything is lost because it has been traded for the thought.

And now you have this nice saying of Banke, why change unborn Buddha mind for thought? Unborn Buddha mind is the mind that is empty and clean and pure. And then when we exchange it for the idea, and now what is that idea? I am Bob, Australian or whatever. I'm Catholic. I'm a tot, Polish, whatever. Or any other identification. Some people have identification, strong identification with the personality. Well, but I'm a cancerian or I am Enneagram three or I am introvert. Some other people have strong identification with the idea of being vulnerable or being fragile or being fearful of rejection. Those are all ideas. Without those ideas, there is no identification.

and without identification there is no problem. Without the thought there is no problem. Without identification there is just being. And of course all that shows in that ocean of being, waves of feelings, emotions, thoughts, problems, dramas, but if they are just passing phenomena on that screen and I am the cognizing emptiness, just plain awareness which is privileged to actually see the passing phenomena, to see the whole dance, the music, the whole orchestra, that's where the freedom is because if things, events are not personal, they are not serious, they are not important, they are not going to bind me, they are not going to hurt me, they lose their sting and they are still there.

They are still there day and night and winter and summer and sickness and health, they are all there. But they enjoy it in a way that is much more organic, much more impersonal, much more free. And that's the invitation and that's possible and as Bob says, everyone knows that because everyone was a baby before they learned language, before they started labeling things out of the field of probability, they knew that state. And also everyone wakes up in the morning and before the download comes down, oh, it's Sunday, we have to go for a meeting. That's the emptiness. And also throughout the day when we are in the flow, let's say we are blown by the beauty of something or we are completely gone in the functioning, there is no thinking, there is no commentary, there is no constructing of separate entity or self.

Those moments are called natural state. Those are Buddha nature. There's nothing more to it. Of course there are insights that bring that blissful, ecstatic, moment. There are moments that bring that blissful, ecstatic, moment. There are moments of recognition. But the natural state is us in nature. That is just a natural state because we have the imagination or the ideas that, oh yeah, but enlightenment is an endless orgasm. Well, that's a concept. That's an idea. That's an idea that blocks us from seeing what's naturally present here and now. And of course we are biased to follow the idea of bliss or idea of pleasure and avoid that.

And of course we are biased to follow the idea of pain. And seeing that bias, seeing that tendency to look for bliss or for pleasure and avoid the pain, that's also coming back to that cognizing emptiness, being the cognizing emptiness that see the pattern of wanting pleasure, showing up and moving the body or not moving the body. But that's the pattern, seeing the pattern as impersonal because that's how the body was conditioned. I didn't choose to be this way. I didn't choose my personality or anything at all. So seeing everything as passing phenomena already brings you back to the point that you can only see it from its opposite, from something that is not passing phenomena.

And the cognizing emptiness is the wrong word to say it is something that is not a passing phenomena because it's not even a something. If it was a something, it was already, a passing phenomena. But it is the cognizing emptiness, which is not a nothing either. So as you said, eventually even the I am must be discarded. Sure. So does that mean the is-ness and the knowingness is also an appearance? It is. For example, you have a life where you put on, let me say, the truan describe it, you've got to use words to truan describe it. Isn't this is knowingness, it's just natural, isn't it?

It's not saying it, knows that it is right now without saying isn't it, it's earning it. Yeah. Yeah. So do you. You know that you are without using any other. The sense that you, you know, there's like the screen is used as a metaphor, you step back to that, but it's a subtle something, you know. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, if there's anything that you can possibly think to discard, discard, it doesn't really matter whether, see because ultimate answer is beyond the mind. So they say it neither exists nor not exists. So there is neither existence nor non-existence because they both existence or non-existence or I am that is to be present or is to be discarded.

They're both extreme positions that are part of duality. None of it is so. But if there is anything, if you can discard the I am, keep discarding. And then you discard the one who is discarding, keep discarding. It's just keeping, stepping back to that recognition where if there is no one to step back anymore, there is just this is-ness. If you can discard the is-ness, wonderful. It's, you can't go wrong with that. It's just ultimately the answer is beyond the mind grasp. So whatever you say, whether it is A or B is neither. So the only thing you can know is what you're not and you can know intellectually the fact of your own being.

But when you take away the story about the fact of your own being, can you negate your beingness? You know that you are. Again, that's just a story about knowing that you are, but you really are. That's the only thing you know for sure. And that's a knowing. I am. There's a sense of presence there, isn't there? An awareness of that. Right here, right now, without saying I am or anything. Do you disappear without the word? You are present. And if you like to put the other label on awareness, you're not unaware. Just what is. That's is. Not was or will be. Isn't it so?

Am I the only idiot here? And also you can see, just because we use that term discarding, you can see how impossible it is for you to do anything at all, including discarding. It's just, it's recognition that happens, simultaneously, and it is not a recognition that is the entity doing. It's not a doing at all. Not a doing involved. Just like, I think on the last meeting somebody pointed out the difference between the seeing and looking. Seeing is happening, and looking is putting that laser beam of attention somewhere. So any sort of movement of attention is already a conditioned pattern that the individual will take credit for.

It will say this is my attention, this is my decision, this is my investigation, I meditate. This is my, isn't my discarding. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, so if you're mindful of this one, it's just, you can see how spontaneously that thing happens, the recognition happens. Oopsie. And it comes from a completely different place than any sort of taking credit activity. It's like Bob is often saying, it's like it dawns on you. Like even if you lose something in the house and then suddenly it just dawns on you. Ah, there it is. So the same way recognition, like there may be a train of thoughts and you may be gone in the story for a little moment.

And then the dawning happens. Oh, it's just a story. So this moment you wake up from that story. And that moment of waking up is not coming from individual. You didn't make yourself to do it. Even if it comes as a consequence, of taking a vow to sit for an hour in the meditation. That idea to sit for an hour in meditation, it also comes from nowhere. Like we don't know where the next thought is going to come. We don't know how things that we hear, how we are getting inspired, how the resonance happens. So all of it is just a dance of patterns. And the tendency to take credit and say this is my, or this is my effort, is to be recognized as just another pattern.

The tendency, the pattern. That's all it is. And seeing how everything is being cleaved, how everything automatically participates in the dance and how it is inseparably connected. Like everything is dependent on everything else. Like even the idea that you will have to sit in a meditation and the consequence of that idea is going to be maybe some sort of an insight. Even that idea will be, you would not be present if you weren't born in that country to these parents and you didn't have these teachers or these influences. All of it is interconnected, it's interdependently arising and it's inseparable from one another. None of it has any independent nature.

So none of it could be ever ascribed to an individual cause and effect. Apart from the fact that nobody ever found an individual, so there isn't such a thing. But yeah, just recognizing the tendency to take credit or the tendency to try or to effort or even the longing that makes you want to do more. Just recognize that pattern, that emotional pull as a pattern, as another wave, like wave of emotion or wave of thinking. And just seeing that pattern as impersonal, it almost, even if it's hurtful sometimes, but it almost makes it sweet because you're looking at another way God appears in the manifestation.

The thought or the tree or the flower or the self-beating. That's another way that intelligence energy or that emptiness becomes a form. And they're all precious, they're all perfect. Well, I know that pain, it doesn't really add up to the idea of preciousness and beauty. But it may. Ask questions. Do you have tips? I mean, because it doesn't matter how far back you step, it seems like even there's something that claims it. Yeah. So do you have any tips on stepping back like apart from? You have already done it. You have already answered it because to realize, that there is always something that claims it.

How do you know? How did you recognize that there was something that claimed it? That is already an act of recognition that you didn't do it. There's always something that claims it. Who says that? Who knows that? See? Recognition of claiming is already happening from its opposite. Bravo. That's how you do it. Keep recognizing. And I think all the time, like I'm now struck at how all the misperceiving kind of almost, I don't know, much like with anything, when you start drinking in your 20s, the only way you learn moderation is because the hangovers really suck. And that takes a long, long while. Yeah, it may take you a while to realize it.

And so I'm overjoyed because for me, I was so concerned about how all the misperceiving, all my projections failing me seem like such a failure, such a problem. But it's only through that coming to learn your judgments of other people, your judgments of yourself are just so ridiculous. But you can only get to that place once you've done a lot of it and been really absurd in it. Once you recognize it's only hurt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Even all the problems you have with people, like even though sometimes they often deserve it, you feel like, you know, when you don't like it, when you don't like someone for some reason, and as much as you can get so righteous about it, it's so poise, you know, it's so disempowering as well, because you're like thinking all the time of that person you don't like.

And then you're like, oh, I don't like that I don't like. And so it's, yeah. Yeah, a good poison that kind of cures you from it in a way. Or as Mooji said, you just got to build, he forces you to build spiritual muscle around those relationships. And that is such a potent and brilliant pointer to see how life already does it. It already conditions you. It conditions you? Well, no, society conditions you and then you're reconditioned more, yeah, by life. By observing your own feedback from within, feeling your own heart. It's almost like deconditioning, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's deconditioning, yeah. Because I heard, Bob, you said something that I'd not heard you say, something around thoughts are just translations.

And then the translation device has been conditioned into us. Yeah. By a very unreliable source. Society, very antiquated source. Absolutely. And so the fact that that translation system starts corroding on you, yeah, that's the deconditioning, I suppose. And even though there's no actual practice, Yeah. you know, because there's no one to have a practice, there's a cognising of that. And you just keep going, oh, there it is, there it is, there it is. And it's sort of, the minute that there it is happens, you go, because it's not you doing it, it's the emptiness, you know? Yeah. It's hard to even explain in words, but it's, yeah.

And is that there it is happening all the time that you're expressing? Is that something that's happening daily or? Yeah. Well, I think so, yeah. Moment to moment, all the time. Moment to moment, if you actually focus on your gut instinct, you will feel that moment to moment you realise there is something wrong and you feel when there is something wrong. Like Sharna was saying, when you hate someone, you may be as right as you want, but it feels yuck. When you are superior, you're feeling that someone is inferior to you. If you pay attention, you will know moment to moment that, and those are perhaps socially conditioned interpretations, but any situation in which your body is giving you a feedback that it is not at ease, that that's an invitation to actually see if there is any claiming going on, if there is any taking credit going on.

Because there will be situations when you will be in a point of discomfort, but even that situations don't have to have the narrative which will translate the whole situation as, you know, the life is picking on me, me versus the world, me versus them. This one is a super imposition of that translation on the utterly neutral dance of life. If you're in the past, you're wrong. If you're in the future, you're wrong. You know, like I'm talking about the story here, because you can never actually be in the past or the future. But the story about the past or the story about the future has to relate to a me.

And the me is a story too. So if you're in the past, you're wrong. If you're in the future, you're wrong. You see that, then you go, yeah, it's a story about me and the other. It's a story about a me who's having a response to the other, person, place or thing. So if you're in that story, you know, you're naming and claiming. That's where it's difficult to get your head around because you need the past to navigate this world in a way, and the future. So that's where it's difficult to understand. Do you? No, no, no. Look at the cats and dogs. Do they really need to conceptualize it?

Because whatever your body needs to understand is already there. I'm not saying the mind's not a useful tool. That's where the mind comes in. Where's the mind? That's the self that's gone. But the mind appears upon, the mind appears upon it, that presence that you are. And it's not the mind that's the problem. It's the naming and claiming of the things in the mind, including the story of you. The selfing. The selfing, yeah. Jane, what's that line in the big book you told me recently? What decision based on self placed you in a position to be hurt? And so once you say that every time you have disease, every single time there's disease, it's about self.

The self that Bob sits here and tells us every week that doesn't exist. He said there is no self. And yet when there's any disease, it's all about this illusory self naming or claiming. You know? That's okay. When I rang you that day, harboring this resentment that, I was so ashamed to admit, that I've been hanging onto and sort of kept an identity of me alive. Even though I've heard that line before, something clicked. It went, oh of course, which self is offended? Which self is resentful? Which exact self? So every time now I feel that's a similar energy, it's like, well, whose is it?

Exactly. And so it's like it's the ultimate liberation. Yes. And that's why I absolutely love, firstly I absolutely love the fact I met Bob, but I love the fact that over the years I've seen how the 12-step program marries perfectly to non-duality. Because it's all in that book, you know, how it works. It says, you know, what decision based on self placed you in a position to be hurt? And if you actually do the work on that, it always comes back to self. And then Bob says there is no self. You know, that self can only live if you're in the past or in the future.

And it's always related to a response to a person, place or thing. You know, and if it's just hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, and you're cruising along in the world and there's, you know, harmony and it's, you know, quite cruisy, well, you're not having disease. You're not having a naming, you're not having a name claiming. You don't have to figure it out or go, what is this? Am I enlightened? You're not resentful. You're not self-pitying. You're not blaming someone else. You're not looking for an out. Yeah. You know? Because there's nowhere to run and nowhere to run from. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. And what I've noticed is there's just a spontaneous here-ness and just, I don't know, like a...

An ease. An ease. Yeah, an ease. What's that, Bob? Ease of being. Ease of being. Same or something. Same or... Yeah. Thank you. OK, so... Bob is going to say something. Yeah. . Hmm? What was it I missed out? Try and negate your beingness right now. Let it be. Let everything be. And if you drop the be, as Michael was trying to point out, there's nothing there, but there seems to be a sense there. But it's an empty sense. So when they say that liberation is not trying to gain anything, it's discarding all the rubbish that's stopped us from seeing it. Not the word without the concept.

Can you negate your being right now? You can't say, I am not. But if you say, I am, well, again, you put the beingness on it. Without that, it just is a sense of presence. Isn't that so? Don't forget it. I read this beautifully. So it's sort of talking about a few things, but it's sort of alluding to what Shana and Michael were talking about. A young man from Colombo Salon said to Bhagavan Krishnamurti that... said... Krishnamurti teaches the method of effortless and choiceless awareness as distinct from that of deliberate concentration. Would Bhagavan be pleased to explain how best to practice meditation and what form the object of meditation should take?

And so this is Ramana Maharshi's... Effortless and choiceless awareness is our real nature. If we can attain that state and abide in it, that is all right. But... But one cannot reach it without effort. The effort of deliberate meditation. All the age-old vasanas, inheritance tendencies, in other words, patterns, turn the mind outwards to external objects. All thoughts have to be given up and the mind turned inwards. And that, for most people, requires effort. Of course, every teacher in every book tells the aspirant to keep quiet. But it is not easy to do so. That is why all this effort is necessary. Even if we find somebody who has achieved this supreme state of stillness, you may take it that the necessary effort had already been made in a previous life.

Well, I don't know about that, but anyway... So effortless and choiceless awareness is attained only after deliberate meditation. And that meditation can take whatever form most appeals to you. So in other words, whatever pointer works for you. That's how I see that. See what helps you to keep out all other thoughts and adopt that for your meditation. In this connection, Bhagavan quoted some verses from the great Tamil poet and saint. The gist of which is as follows. Bliss will ensue if you keep still. But however much you tell your mind this truth, it will not keep still. It is the mind that tells the mind to be still in order for it to attain bliss.

But it will not do it. Though all the scriptures have said it, and though we hear it daily from the great ones, and even from our teacher, we are never quiet, but stay into the world of maya, illusion and sense objects. That is why conscious, deliberate effort is needed to attain that effortless state of stillness. So in other words, the thing that works for me... So the thing that works for me is to see the decision based on self. Because whenever there's conflict or disease, it's because I'm back in the maya. There's the, you know, and then it's bang, there it is. That works for me really quickly now because I've been doing it for 36 years.

But it's a good pointer. And it's in the big book. That conscious, deliberate effort. Is that true? Do you agree with that? Or is it just like some people might wake up and... To me, it's a pointer. Whenever there's disease, any pointer that takes us out of the story of ourselves, you know, because we know there is no self. But, you know, every now and again there's a catching. It's, you know, there's a catching. And so I'm saying whatever works for you. I'm saying what works here is when I'm in the past or future I'm wrong because it's related to a me. Then I'm naming or claiming or identifying.

And it can only be in the objective mind. But what am I in reality? Just this. No story. So whatever pointer works for you, I'm just saying a really quick process is what Bob said is if you're in the past, you're wrong. If you're in the future, you're wrong. You know, because you've got to be relating to a me. And that marries to the 12-step program too. You know, what decision based on self or what self? It's got to be a story, doesn't it? But I'm glad you pointed it out, Michael, because this is a pointer that is... that may be extremely confusing for a lot of people who spent 20, 30 years meditating because they believe in a conscious effort.

And what the conscious effort actually keep them, it keep them in the position of being a meditator, trying to put as much force as they can to manipulate the reality and get something for me. So that's a good very... I'm glad it came up because what Bob is often saying, when effort is required, effort will come. It doesn't mean that there is never any effort involved in a game of life. When the mother gives a birth to the child, the effort is immense. But it is not the entity that is having any power to put any effort because the entity is fiction and it has no power.

This is only a power of belief that makes people live their lives as if they were doers and decision makers and choice makers responsible for the mistakes, for ruining their life, for wasting their potential and all that other nonsense that comes with it. It's only the belief that keeps them in bondage. Trying to get the effortless from making effort. Haven't we done enough effort? Without trying to practice more effort. It's the thing to see through it. And the donning, the recognition, it is effortless. It doesn't come from individual. It comes from different place. It comes from that space like cognising emptiness. The individual is the mind or the identification with the mind.

It can move and jump and scream and throw tantrums on the mind. It can throw tantrums on the floor and wave the hands and legs and do whatever. And it is just another pattern. It doesn't really... It comes from a different place. It is the movement. The mind and the activity of the mind is always a vibration. It's always a movement. How can movement take you to stillness? It can't. Whatever the effort, the individual, the me, the yelling, the screaming, the biting is a movement. Stillness is a pause when there is no conceptualising going on. And whatever helps you get to that pause, whatever comes up for you, whatever that is, that makes you go, there it is.

You never made any effort, nothing ever happened. Recognising. Yeah. Recognised. The best thing for me to do is just give up. That's true. When Bob used to have his group in Victoria Parade, we thought about calling it the I Give Up group. That means give up on fixing the I also. That's such a time and money saver. In many ways, Bob, I think you're one of the most radical non-duality teachers because you're not just a person who is trying to fix the I, you're trying to fix the I. And you're trying to fix the I. And you're trying to fix the I. And I'm not a non-duality teacher because, well, I don't want to name names, but I'm noticing, well, actually, just in a month of Mooji, and I see the reason behind it, but there's still, he says things like, this could be your last satsang, this could be, you know, it kind of has everyone anticipating, and even others suggesting subtle practices like that but um yeah in many ways you really cut it really quite more direct in that message i was talking to a friend yesterday and um you know and he's been questioned about why he still wants to come and see bob after all these years and it's about gratitude it's about gratitude it's about what why would you not be grateful to be with someone who took you beyond the need for further help but i think that's why you don't have hundreds here bob because you're not selling anything and gratitude can't be manufactured it has to be real it has to be a real welling up of gratitude it can't be a false sense of gratitude it has to be real yeah it could also be the contribution that brings people here being able to point out to others just like you were appointed you're doing it for others now anyway time's caught up with us there's no time bob okay you want to stay here another hour this is how this says give up the process of the thinking principle look at that one give up the process of the thinking principle